Too cool for school

It’s that time of year again. Drunkards roam the streets, clinging to the last few days of summer like they won’t drink all semester anyway. Furry pink rug sales skyrocket, as gaudy, tasteless decorations are accepted and expected in dorm rooms. Campus is stirring with prettier and taller people than it will see all year. Hair is straightened, heels are endured, new outfits debuted… all for the new school year.

Even I’ll get caught up in the hype. I’ll pick a back-to-school outfit that’s casual yet cute and curl my hair loosely, so it looks natural. I won’t look like I tried, but every girl will know I did. I’ll have highlighters handy and perhaps write due dates in a calendar because, of course, this semester will be different. I’ll be organized and well rested. I’ll sit in the front of the class and participate often without being annoying. I’ll resist tripping sorority girls.

And this time, this semester, I’ll give myself a stellar introduction.

Perhaps I should preface this by saying I’m hopelessly terrified of first-day-of-school scenarios. I remember I was so scared my first day of high school, I actually had to leave class, multiple times, to tend to a nervous bowel situation. But I digress.

The point is, new situations and new people scare me. Yes, this coming from the girl who booked it across the Atlantic to live alone in Europe for a year. But back then, you could have shipped me off to Baghdad with only a George W. bumper sticker to cover my ass, and I would have said THANK YOU for getting me out of Bolivar. But I digress again.

It’s not that I’m worried what people will think of me because I have an unmatched ability to join classes in which NO hott guys are present. I’m not sure what it is. This is just one of my many feelings that doesn’t make sense. Like my unnatural fear of flying. Or my unnatural dislike of babies.

Anyway, I might not even have this stupid dread toward first-day days if we didn’t ALWAYS have to do obligatory introductions. Name, year in school, major, reason you’re taking the class, and… here’s the kicker… something interesting about yourself.

Something interesting? What am I supposed to say to that? I once pooped 6 hours straight my first day of high school? I can bong a beer in 3.4 seconds? A few years ago, I outran a cop while naked? All interesting, but probably not appropriate, at least for first impressions. That’s stuff better saved for weeks 3 or 4.

It’s not that I’m uninteresting, it’s just I can’t really think of something so special about me, it deserves to be mentioned right off the bat. I’m not sure what kind of bullshit I’ve made up in the past for these kinds of exchanges. It’s not like you can say something like, “I have 450 tattoos,” or “I can contort my tongue into the shape of a penis” or “I am magic.” Because they’ll make you show them, and then when your tongue looks nothing like male genitalia, they’ll just think you’re weird. Or a liar. Or sleep with strange men.

But this time around, this semester, I’m going to come up with something interesting about myself so that maybe I won’t be so terrified on the first day of school. I’m not so concerned with truthfulness as I am coolness.

Here are some of my contenders:

Lil’ Wayne is my uncle. He gets sloppy drunk at family Christmases, so I take care of him.

I was a child star. Remember that Alex Mac show? That was me. Hollywood was too superficial for me, though.

I met Chuck Norris. And lived to tell about it.

I’m married to a billionaire. But if I tell you his name, I’ll have to kill you.

I dated Chelsea Handler before she went straight.

I skydive, like, everyday.

I choreograph all of Beyonce’s videos. Post Destiny’s Child, that is.

I was the first to come up with the phrase, “That’s what she said.”

OK. This is just a preliminary list, mind you. I’m open to suggestions any of you other fantastic liars can come up with.

In the meantime, I’m going to work on giving wrong directions to all of the frantic newbies around campus.

Echo de Menos

They’re the most vivid dreams.

I see the drops that escape a fountain, onto the stone ledge, onto the slippery sidewalk, onto my skin. I feel the menthol smoke cooling what my cup of espresso had tastily burned. I open my courtyard window to sunshine, freshly hung clothes, and bad techno music. The unmistakable sound of a Diet Coke can splitting open makes my heart feel like Spring. The Diet Coke tastes better here.

But I don’t hear the language. No oigo el idioma. Not in my dreams. That’s how I know I’m not there. That my time in that world has passed, and I should move on.

Indeed I have, as much as a girl can. I’ve made a new home in a city I adore just as much as Granada. I have new friends who are beyond what I deserve, and the same family just a short drive away. Since Granada, I’ve loved deeply, cried even more deeply, and learned still more about who I am, what I need, deserve, and can’t live without.

I guess that’s how it’s supposed to work. You grow up and hopefully grow better. You allow each experience to guide you to the next one, constantly building, forever gaining. So why do I keep regressing? Why do I long for Spain? Still. Still?

I suppose it’s not the vineyard by the mountains or the meals by the ocean. It’s not the cheap wine, the 9 a.m. “nights,” or even the hippies playing their flutes in the plazas.

It’s who I was then. It’s how I embraced being young. How I longed to understand more—the language, the streets, bar specials, traveling, and different cultures. It’s how independent I was, not knowing a soul, but making lifelong soul mates. I miss the adventure and discovery. Not knowing what was beyond the corner, beyond the bus route, beyond a short plane ride. I miss being challenged.

I’m afraid I’m attached. Comfortable. I’m afraid I love too much now. The people in my life, my routine, my own bed and blankets. I’m afraid I won’t go see all that’s left to see because I’m shortsighted by the here and now.

And so I dream. I grab my hand and walk up the jagged, bricked hills of Spain.

Always up, as hills don’t work the other way here. And I look onto the city of whitewashed concrete and say, “hasta luego.” Until I sleep again.